Social Media: The Right & Wrong Way

February 23rd, 2009 by Corrie Carter

I hear a lot of people say that they don’t engage in social media because they don’t understand it, and I 100 percent get it. It’s overwhelming at first. Enormous amounts of content are generated and posted each day. And, this information is moving fast. My hunch is that beyond just understanding the mechanics of it, people are wary of doing it wrong.

Again, I get it. The last thing you want to do is embarrass yourself or your company. There are too many examples of social media “trailblazers” whose mistakes we can learn from:

• Thank you Wal-Mart. From now on thou shalt not lie about traveling the country in an RV, visiting your parking lots.

• Thank you Burger King. We now know  thou shalt not delete your friends for a Whopper and then violate Facebook’s privacy policy by telling them about it.

• And, thank you Sony. I vow to never claim to be a kid who wants a PSP for Christmas when really a member of Sony’s Internet marketing team.

In this evolving world of social media, trust your instincts.  If it feels wrong, it probably is. Remember, authenticity is key.  And, if you need additional guidelines to follow, check out these by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA).

— Corrie Carter

This entry was posted by Corrie Carter on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 and is filed under Public Relations, Social Networking, Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.